EPSRC Science and Innovation Awards - £20m for extremely thin research

Several institutions have revealed plans to open research centres to explore graphene, the thinnest conducting material in existence. Five-year grants totalling £20 million have been awarded to the universities of Bath, Edinburgh, Exeter, Heriot-Watt, Lancaster, Manchester and Strathclyde, Imperial College London and the London School of Economics, as part of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's 2008 Science and Innovation Awards. Lesley Thompson, the council's director of research, said: "It is thought that with the new research a new generation of high-tech devices will be produced using the single layers of graphite. Alexander Savchenko, of the University of Exeter's School of Physics, said: "We are delighted that Exeter will be playing such a major role in the emerging field of graphene science."